Ventilation improvement after pneumonia treatment evaluated with electrical impedance tomography: an observational study

Abstract Objective. Due to radiation exposure, not all patients with pneumonia receive chest x-rays or CT measurements to confirm treatment effectiveness. The aim of this study was to examine the ability to use electrical impedance tomography (EIT) to evaluate the treatment effectiveness in such patient group. Approach . A total of 35 consecutive patients with non-severe pneumonia were included in this prospective study. The patients received standard treatment according to our internal protocol. EIT measurements were performed in supine position before the treatment started and on day 6 of the treatment period. The EIT-based global inhomogeneity ( GI ) index and center of ventilation ( CoV ) index were calculated. The clinical pulmonary infection score (CPIS) was obtained at both time points. Main r esults. Clinically significant improvements in GI and CoV were found in the patient group (Δ GI : −34% ± 17% and Δ CoV : −10% ± 11%; p <0.001). Although the CPIS was also significantly improved (Δ CPIS −0.70 ± 0.17, p <0.001), no correlations were demonstrated when compared to Δ GI or Δ CoV. Significance. EIT demonstrated individual improvement of ventilation heterogeneity after standard treatment in non-severe pneumonia, and provided different information compared to CPIS. EIT has the potential to become a routine non-invasive, non-radiative tool to assess pneumonia treatment effectiveness.